[02:28] <snail> http://ubuntu-nz.org/ doesn't seem like the most useful url to have in the title
[02:28] <chilts> snail: slow day?
[02:28] <ajmitch> oh fun
[02:28]  * ajmitch should find out how to fix that
[02:28] <snail> something like that
[02:29] <chilts> :)
[02:29] <ojwb> it seems to pretty well summarise us I think
[02:30] <snail> apparently we have a contract linux admin starting up here shortly anyone know who it is?
[02:30] <ajmitch> 'here' being?
[02:30] <ibeardslee> I thought that had already been linked to the wiki page
[02:30] <ajmitch> ibeardslee: used to be
[02:30]  * ojwb wonders why it seemed a good idea to rename the text boot config on the CD from text.cfg to txt.cfg between lucid and natty
[02:31] <ojwb> I guess that extra character can be put to better use somewhere
[02:31] <ibeardslee> txt spek?
[02:31] <ajmitch> following the fine traditions of UNIX?
[02:31] <ojwb> ajmitch: randomly renaming stuff?
[02:32] <snail> ajmitch: 'here' being Victoria University of Wellington
[02:32] <ajmitch> ojwb: a strong aversion to vowels
[02:34] <snail> for april 1 we should do a distro where all executable files' names are mime-style base64 encoded
[02:35] <snail> or would anyone notice?
[02:35] <chilts> heh
[02:37] <ojwb> ajmitch: I'm reminded of that Ken Thompson quote: http://books.google.com/books?id=poFQAAAAMAAJ&q=%22spell+creat+with+an+e%22&dq=%22spell+creat+with+an+e%22
[02:37] <chilts> snail: one time in Catalyst people changed their nicks to be the first 8 chars of their GPG key ... it was quite painful trying to figure out who was who
[02:37] <chilts> snail: http://she.geek.nz/archives/394-more-crazy-times-in-catalyst.html
[02:40] <ajmitch> who doesn't know their GPG ID?
[02:40] <ojwb> 3bad2b07
[02:44] <chilts> 3bad!!!
[02:44] <chilts> hmm, I need to copy it from my old computer to this one
[02:46] <ibeardslee> I have my business card taped to my monitor
[02:46] <chilts> because you can't remember your name or who you work for?
[02:48] <ibeardslee> .. .. .. .. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 .. 2 1 0 .. for my gpg id
[02:49] <ajmitch> you only need to know the last 8 characters
[02:52] <ibeardslee> maybe I should use it as my password for a while .. help me remember
[02:54] <ajmitch> a rather public password
[02:55] <ibeardslee> only if you know it is being used as a password
[02:55] <ibeardslee> err
[02:56] <ajmitch> noone would ever know...
[02:58] <ibeardslee> well .. hopefully I would
[03:00] <ojwb> just make sure not to mention the idea in a public forum
[03:00] <ojwb> especially not one which is logged
[03:01] <ibeardslee> should be all good if I delete my logs right?
[03:02] <ojwb> hmm, I think our fuse box just went clunk and is now buzzing
[03:02] <ojwb> probably an enormous bee flew into it
[03:10] <chilts> heh, this conversation is too much
[03:10] <chilts> best fun I've had on a Thursday afternoon ... since like 4 EVA
[03:10] <chilts> :)
[03:10] <ajmitch> that's a bit of a worry
[03:13] <ojwb> i phoned the electricity company but I'm not the account holder
[03:13]  * ojwb sighs
[03:15] <chilts> that sucks
[03:16] <ojwb> yeah, though I understand
[03:16] <ojwb> at least fault reports skip the hold queue
[03:17] <ojwb> jenny's rung and they'll send someone round in 4-6 hours
[03:17] <ojwb> so I guess that's decided about python UG for me
[03:25] <snail> there was a powercut in wellington a few weeks ago that effected the uni. a unit had a shiny new building with a shiny new generator to keep the wheels rolling if the power should go off. the generator supplied ~500 volts for the first 5 seconds. some of the gear didn't like that.
[03:26] <snail> on the plus side, they're all getting shiny new computers now...
[03:26] <chilts> ;D
[03:26] <ibeardslee> heh
[03:31] <ibeardslee> no UPS?
[03:31] <ojwb> which reminds me, are power spikes, etc a big problem in NZ?
[03:32] <ojwb> i've notice in the electrical retailers they push surge filters quite hard
[03:33] <ojwb> but I've also noticed the prices they charge for them are silly, so I wonder if that's just because they can make more on those than on the actual equipment
[03:34] <ibeardslee> they do that because they can also sell extended warranties that are only valid if they have a surge protector
[03:35] <ajmitch> I think the power grid is fairly stable, but I've only lived down south, not in those dodgy areas like wellington
[03:38] <snail> I've twice lost equipment to lightning strikes in wellington residential/domestic buildings; in both cases the strikes were within 100 m of the equipment
[03:39]  * ojwb makes a note not to move near snail
[03:39] <snail> In hamilton I had a run of powercuts caused by boy-racers hitting power poles / transformers, but none of those fried hardware
[03:40] <snail> heh
[03:41]  * ibeardslee is more than 100m away
[03:49] <snail> Does someone have recommendations of surge filters ?
[03:50] <ojwb> snail: there's probably a poster of you up in every store with "do not sell surge filters to this man" underneath
[03:58] <snail> ojwb: i can think of worse things to be written under my photo.
[04:00] <chilts> Wanted!
[04:00] <chilts> for one
[04:04] <ibeardslee> better than "Not Wanted"
[04:07] <snail> "wanted dead or alive" with the second half scratched out
[19:33] <ibeardslee> morning
[19:45] <ibeardslee> right xfce it is then
[20:11] <ajmitch> morning
[20:18] <Atamira> morning
[21:02] <hads> Mornin
[21:28] <chilts> morning
[21:45] <ibeardslee> http://digitizor.com/2011/08/04/linus-torvalds-ditches-gnome-for-xfce/
[21:46] <ibeardslee> love the comment about not using unity
[21:46] <ibeardslee> in the comments, not the article
[21:47] <chilts> not surprising really .. he should just switch to XMonad :)
[22:16] <snail> he's a long way from the target audience of gnome, and getting further away by the day
[22:19] <ojwb> morning
[22:19] <ajmitch> at least it's a friday morning
[23:09] <thumper> morning
[23:53] <ojwb> oh, very funny natty
[23:53] <ojwb> apt-get remove 'gnome-.*'
[23:53] <ojwb> and it tries to install kde
[23:59] <ibeardslee> ojwb: is that to get a xfce desktop or somesuch?